Despondent after the disappointment of playing Batman in Batman & Robin, Val Kilmer chose The Saint, based on the character best remembered from books at the 70s TV-series, which offered more acting opportunities, rather than return to being swallowed up in a rubber suit in another Bat-sequel. The Saint is certainly better than Batman Forever, but by less than you might expect.
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Largely forgotten, the 1992 thriller set on a South Dakota Native American reservation casts Val Kilmer as FBI Agent Ray Levoi assigned to the case for his Sioux lineage which works as PR move for the FBI (even if he doesn’t appear Native American and has spent most of his life shunning that heritage). Kilmer, who had some Native American ancestry on his father’s side, delivers a strong performance of a man struggling to find truth where the only ones talking to him are almost certainly lying.
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More notable for Val Kilmer‘s supporting role as Doc Holliday than anything else, 1993’s Tombstone comes to 4K for the first time. After a bit of gunplay highlighting the Cowboys who will make up the film’s villains, the film opens with Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) along with his brothers Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan (Bill Paxton) and their wives (Paula Malcomson, Lisa Collins, and Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) relocating out West to the bombing town of Tombstone. Done with their public service, or so they believe, the Earps are looking to retire and make their fortune in the West starting with Wyatt getting the family a stake in a local Saloon by cleaning out the trash (Billy Bob Thornton).
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In honor of the passing of Val Kilmer, this Flashback Friday takes us back to 1995’s tour-de-force crime drama Heat. Unquestionably Michael Mann‘s best film, Heat splits its focus between a crew of armed robbers led by Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and the cops out to stop them led by LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). No film has played both sides so well, although if I have a complaint it’s that a more ambiguous ending that faded to black on the gunshot in the weeds on the edge of Los Angeles International Airport allowing the audience to determine the winner of the pair’s struggle would seem to be more fitting.
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Actor Val Kilmer has passed away at the age of 65. Read reviews for Val (a documentary on the man’s life and career), Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Spartan, Top Gun, Heat, Batman Forever, XIII: The Conspiracy, and Deja Vu. His filmography also includes Tombstone, The Saint, The Doors, and Real Genius.
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Good Night, Val Kilmer Read More »
